


Comfort Revisited

by WanderingSummerBreeze



Category: Outlander (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 17:26:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8722513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingSummerBreeze/pseuds/WanderingSummerBreeze
Summary: Read 'Comfort' first. It will set the tone.S01E04. What if Jamie didn't bring Claire back up to the castle after she tried to escape.





	

I was angry. He had thwarted my plan. It didn’t matter if he was right in all he said. Extra guards. Unknown horse. I sighed heavily, defeated.

“ _I’ll take you back up to the castle,”_ he had said. I groaned inwardly, telling him the tale of my escape and the clan members, Dougal included, that I had met along the way.

Jamie, alert and concerned at first, had laughed when I had told him of my reactions to Dougal’s advances. But he had gone quiet, pulled into his head for a moment, contemplating something, before speaking once more.

“I canna promise I can get ya back to the surgery without no one noticing. You could stay here, maybe.”

“What? With you?” I wasn’t so delicate as to scoff at the idea of spending the night in a barn. But I hadn’t forgotten what had gone on between us only a week before. Up until now, I hadn’t even thought of it. Best kept locked in a drawer in my head.

“I wouldna mind it so much, Claire, if you’d oblige me. Staying, is what I mean. Seems we would both would be getting somethin out of it.”

I shot him a quizzical, almost accusing stare. Did he think I was going to re-enacting my earlier actions? He stumbled over a nervous laugh, the blush rising in his cheeks as he continued.

“What I mean, lass,” he touched my hands, “is that I would feel the warmth of a woman next to me, even if you nay touch’d me. But I’d drift away into peace with the smell of your hair and softness of your skin. Just in knowin’ you’re there. And you,” I met his eyes, which, until now, had been planted firmly upon his feet, “you’d maybe be okay with me being the one to comfort you. Even if ya wilna let me touch ya. But you could turn into my side for quiet while you wept.”

“What makes you think I need to cry?” I was angry again, like the moment before. I wasn’t some little _lassie_ that needed rescuing. I tried to pull my hands from his grasp, but he held on, stepping forward, pulling a stubborn strand of straw from my dishevelled hair.

“Because I ken what it’s like to be alone in a strange place.” He spoke the words softly as if opening a door only slightly, allowing just the bit of himself to be seen in the soft glow.

I bowed my head in shame. Jamie had been the one thing that had been good about this place. The one person that I did allow my guard to, every now an then, retreat from its post for a moment of rest.

I looked round to his make-shift bed where he had been spending the day, away from the clan. It certainly didn’t look any worse than places I’d slept during the war. My hands began to tremble in his, whether it was from the cold or the dam that held my feelings, held at bay until now, about to collapse with brutal force, bringing with it unrelenting waves of sobs. I was terrified what I might tell him if I couldn’t patch it back up.

Jamie pulled me next to the barn wall, bringing me down to the bed of hay at our feet, tossing my wrapped food a foot away. We knelt in front of each other before he released my hands, extinguishing the light.

“Rest now, Sassenach. I’ll wake before anyone finds us,” and as I lowered myself onto my bed for the night, Jamie pulled the straw in around is, cocooning us in an itchy sort of comfort.

Jamie was true to his word. He didn’t touch me. His back was to the wall, and the rest of his body contoured around my billowing dress. I tried to pull the cloak and gown in closer to me. Whether, subconsciously, meaning that Jamie could lean in closer, or to shield myself further from the chill, I can’t really say. Or maybe, I just wouldn’t admit.

I listened to his steady breathing, his warm breath catching the back of my hair and allowed my eyes to close in wishful sleep. I thought if I thought hard enough, I could conjure Frank from the ether, but each time I would see him walk through the fog, when he made to move the hat off his head, he suddenly became Jamie. My distinguished, scholar husband evaporated into a Highlander. A strong built, tall man with a commanding stance and calm presence. Beautiful hair that made me question whom he had gotten it from. Was his mother’s hair this glorious, deep red? Or was it perhaps, his father that he mirrored in image?

My imagination fluttered and scattered across one thought to the next until it rested upon his face. Just his beautiful boyish face, hints of manhood sprouting across his cheeks and chin. I hadn’t intended for it to enter my mind. I had felt the jab of thought occasionally cut through my thoughts since we’d met, but quickly mended the tear.

What must his face feel like against mine? Frank had always kept a close shave. Each and every day, without fail, he had dragged the razor across his cheek with such precision. I barely felt more than a five o’clock shadow, his hair growing slowly as it did.

But Jamie’s… when he spoke, I watched his mouth. Watched as his lips moved, his tongue rolling his _r’s_ and his face, with it’s sprouting hair, became something I had had to shake out of my head. Sometimes it worked. Other times, I would feel the dampness between my legs and I would clutch my thighs together tightly willing it to stop, fighting with every part of me, to ignore the feel of him beneath my hand in the surgery that day.

I held my breath and first the first time, I heard nothing but silence. I waited. Finally, the soft snore from behind me made me relax. The sounds from the gathering far off in the distance still carried across the night. But that moment, just before, I had heard nothing. Not even my own heart beat.

I felt safer in this bed made of straw and mud than I had in days. I could just try to scramble out of here on foot. But Jamie would catch me. What would he do then? Would he promptly take me back up to the castle and to Colum? Would he yell at me and tell me I was foolish again? Or would he finally do what my mind was screaming at me for him to do. I closed my eyes, his breath, becoming a part of my imaginary world, was picking up speed. He was chasing me through the wood.

I ran fast into the dark of night, cutting through the mist like sun breaking through the clouds. I could hear Jamie’s pants as he followed close behind, his footfalls crashing over the leaves.

I looked over my shoulder at the sleeping form next to me, carving his face into memory as I turned back. I reached down to the hem of my dress, as quietly as I could, bringing it up higher to fit my hand beneath its heavy blanket. I fumbled with the layers, growing desperate to forget everything but the sensation growing between my thighs.

My cool hand touched the heat of my body and I arched against it, a soft whimper escaping my mouth. I closed my eyes, conjuring up more images of an emerging Scot in the mist.

_Jamie, catching up, took hold of my flailing arms and pushed me against a sturdy tree. I struggled. Words never formed in either of our mouths, but I could feel perspiration drip from my upper lip just before he swept in to steal it away with his tongue before pushing it past my lips, owning my mouth. My body fought against him which only made his grasp on my wrists tighten as he pushed his hardness, shielded only slightly by his kilt, into me._

My finger, focusing solely on my clit until now, moved slowly down, encountering a hand that wasn’t mine. My mind froze. I hadn’t even noticed him waking, let alone reaching beneath me. Images of slapping the hand away and springing up from the ground to run only furthered my fevered imagination. So instead, I just lay silent. Hoping – willing – him to be asleep. An idle hand, lost in his own dreams, I hoped, simply venturing out for a stroll.

But he wasn’t asleep. Jamie shifted against me, his hand still, grazing mine, resting on the wet curls beneath my clothes.

I sniffled, the emotion welling up inside me, then moved my hand to guide his inside me in silence. I felt his fingers, first one, then a second added only a moment later, stretch inside me. If his fingers were this large…

Tears began to slide down my cheeks, betraying my stubbornness to give in.

“Shh. Lass. Just let it go. Not forever. Just for now.”

I rolled over, burying my head in his chest, while his fingers worked inside my body. I made to take hold of him through his kilt, but he stopped me. I looked up into his eyes, a sliver of moonlight cutting through a break in the stone, causing his eyes to sparkle like stars in a cold nights’ sky.

“You took me in your embrace and cared for me last week, Claire. I don’t need it so much myself tonight. But I think you do.”

His hands, seemingly unskilled and clumsy at first, quickly found their stride, and as he pushed inside me, I felt as though he was pushing my tears out from within as well. My head fell forward against his chest once more, the smell of sweat and manure from his shirt causing my nostrils to flare in not an entirely unpleasant manner.

His free arm moved under my head cradling me to his body while he worked me. I clutched at his shirt, tears from the seams slicing through my moans and sobs until finally, my body shook in a relentless quake, shattering every wall I had so carefully stacked up and plastered, to crumble to bits on the ground all around me.

I wept into his shirt, tears from my cheeks joining the stains of his labour. He carefully removed his hand from inside me, bringing it around my body to meet its pair.

I wept for my old life. For Frank. Wept for my escape plan shot to hell and the unknown world I may very well be stuck in forever.

I wept for it all, except for tonight. Tonight, I lay in the arms of a man strong enough to break down my walls, but strong enough to put me back together again.


End file.
